Lime

includes Lime Gen 4, Lime Gen 3

44 statements across 6 episodes · 26 bullish · 10 bearish · 6 people on the record · first statement Apr 29, 2019 by Sarah Smith · said 145 times in 14 episodes since 2019 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (63), Wayne Ting (52), Sarah Smith (8), Brad Bao (6), Martin Mignot (4), Tom Hulme (3), Dara Khosrowshahi (3), Emil Michael (2)

tap a year for its mentions
0040380520192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
03520192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
00102.520520192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 4 mentions in 1 episode
2025 80 mentions in 4 episodes 20 per episode
2023 3 mentions in 1 episode
2022 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2019 54 mentions in 5 episodes 11 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Lime, oldest first

Apr 29, 2019 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Smith: Lime could become the world's largest transportation company
“I believe they have a shot at being the largest transportation company in the world.”
Sarah Smith Apr 29, 2019 ▶ 19:55 20VC: Why Lead Lime's Series D Funding Round, Why Engineers Are Underpaid & Why 74% of US Venture Firms Still Do Not Have Female GPs
Apr 29, 2019 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Smith: Lime is the first company since Facebook to show such hyper-growth
“Lime is the first company I have seen since my time at Facebook showing that kind of sort of tornado of growth and insane momentum.”
Sarah Smith Apr 29, 2019 ▶ 19:47 20VC: Why Lead Lime's Series D Funding Round, Why Engineers Are Underpaid & Why 74% of US Venture Firms Still Do Not Have Female GPs
Apr 29, 2019 bullish
Prediction Partly held up
Smith: Bain expects Lime to generate a 15x to 20x return
“My bet was really believing that Lime is the ability to get us positive economics and more than 15 to 20 X from here.”
Sarah Smith Apr 29, 2019 ▶ 20:04 20VC: Why Lead Lime's Series D Funding Round, Why Engineers Are Underpaid & Why 74% of US Venture Firms Still Do Not Have Female GPs
Jun 14, 2019 positive
Assertion Contradicted
Lime released four major hardware vehicle generations within 12 months
“We started building our hardware team and doing the vertical integration started day one. And what it enabled us to do is in the last 12 months or so that we released Four major versions of the vehicles, and one generation after generation that we improve on t…”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 16:07 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime reached market profitability in one city in just two weeks
“Two weeks.”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 15:44 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lime aims to replace 20-30% of city traffic within five years
“And for five years that what I really hope is for the cities that we're operating in, that we may not be able to cut the traffic by 50% yet, but at least that we can lift it from one percent, two percent today to, you know, 20, 30% of that. The of the car traf…”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 29:04 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime is already profitable in dozens of individual city markets
“We already have dozens of markets of profitable.”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 14:36 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019
Insight
Hire executives 12 months before you need their full team built
“So for us, the way I look at it is that just imagine that a talent or a executive that imagine the team he or she will be managing 12 months from now. So therefore that you bring them on 12 months earlier and give them the opportunity to build that team over t…”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 20:56 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime captures majority market share with only half the deployed fleet
“There are many markets that we are half of the fleet that will have way more than half of the market share that representing it.”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 11:57 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 positive
Assertion Supported
Lime operates in over 100 markets globally within two years
“We are a company that's two year and five month old, but we're already operating in 25 plus countries and over a hundred markets across the world.”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 8:09 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 negative
Disclosure
Lime deliberately rejected Uber's playbook of launching without prior city approval
“When we started a company that the proven formula, which is a uncommon common practice, That idea to get into a city. Well, you know Uber established it, right? You just go to the city, you launch the service, and talk about it with the city after that. And we…”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 26:40 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Jun 14, 2019 bullish
Disclosure
Lime spends zero dollars on paid user acquisition, says CEO Brad Bao
“We don't spend a penny on user acquisitions”
Brad Bao Jun 14, 2019 ▶ 6:44 20VC: Lime CEO Brad Bao on How Lime Assess The Micro-Mobility Landscape and Competition Today, What It Takes To Launch and Win A New City & Why Lime Have Spent $0 on Marketing To Date
Oct 25, 2022 negative
Insight
Emil Michael: Pay-to-play recaps never work for tech startups
“These pay to play things never work. It didn't work at bird. It didn't work at Lime.”
Emil Michael Oct 25, 2022 ▶ 37:45 Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 27, 2023 negative
Disclosure
Khosrowshahi: Uber's past allocations into hardware products were a mistake
“We're not particularly good in hardware, and I think our investment or the capital that we allocated in hardware in the past was a mistake.”
Dara Khosrowshahi Mar 27, 2023 ▶ 15:13 Dara Khosrowshahi: How I Became CEO of Uber; Uber Eats vs DoorDash; The Postmates Acquisition | E994 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime Achieves an Over 90% Win Rate in Competitive City RFPs
“We have a greater than 90% win rate of competitive RFPs on a global basis, and we renew our permits at a greater than 95% rate.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 17:44 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime Has Not Yet Hit a Demand Limit for Incremental Supply Growth
“Intellectually, I assume there's an asymptote. So far in markets we see Incremental supply drives more demand for the entire network.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 16:35 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
San Diego Suffered Lime's Highest Vehicle Theft Rate Due to Gangs
“In the history of Lime, it was, it would probably be San Diego. We were seeing actually like gangs of people coming into San Diego and then stealing the bikes and scooters and driving into Mexico. So it was hard for us to like police and react to it.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 55:13 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Lime's System Only Generates Scooter Relocation Tasks If ROI Positive
“Every move task has to be ROI positive.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 25:01 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Jan 2030
Wayne Ting Intends to Spend the Next Five Years Leading Lime
“Even if I'm going to die in the next five years, I want to be spending the next five years working on Lyme's mission to decarbonize transportation.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 1:00:34 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime Uses Machine Learning to Predict Trip Demand by the Half-Block
“We have a machine learning demand algorithm that predicts where we think trips are going to come from in all the cities we're in by the block, by the half block.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 24:44 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Wayne Ting Feared Lime Would Go Bankrupt for His First Four Years
“I would say my first four years as CEO, I was constantly worried about Line going out of business.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 0:11 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Wayne Ting Believes Lime Is a Strong Candidate for an Eventual IPO
“I think Lime is a great future candidate as a public, publicly traded company. We are the market leader in a very fast growing industry with a big tan, and we have demonstrated over many years a differentiated financial results, both in top line growth and in …”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 46:29 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025
Insight
CEOs Should Never Guarantee to Employees That a Layoff Is Final
“Never promise people this is the only round because you never know because you're the, you're doing that as a way to save the company, to bring the cost in line with the revenue expectations. If the world gets worse, if your revenue expectation gets worse, the…”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 36:40 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025
Disclosure
Wayne Ting Cannot Move His Left Arm Following a Recent Stroke
“When you suffer a stroke, like, I still can't move my left arm and my left hand.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 49:20 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime Lost $3 for Every $1 of Revenue When Wayne Ting Joined
“When I first streamed Line, we were losing three dollars for every dollar of revenue.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 0:00 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Lime Achieved Unlevered Free Cash Flow Positivity to Fund Internal Growth
“Last year was our first year getting to unlever free cash flow positive, so we were able to fund all of our capital expenditure and all of our growth from our internal profits”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 41:20 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime's Early Scooter Fleet Suffered a 3% Daily Decay Rate
“The daily decay rate was three percent. So in the course of 30 days, your entire fleet was gone.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 4:37 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Uber Provided Under Half of Lime's $140M Emergency COVID Funding Round
“I think the total round was a hundred and forty million dollars. Not all of it was from Uber. In fact, I think less than half is from Uber.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 32:42 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Assertion Supported
Lime Hit $600M Gross Bookings and $90M EBITDA in 2023
“Last year, we did over six hundred million dollars in gross bookings. Our four-year top line CAGR is 30%. In each of those four years, we expanded our profit margins. And last year we did over ninety million dollars in company-wide EBITDA.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 14:10 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025
Disclosure
Wayne Ting Visited 100 Lime Warehouses in Three Months During Turnaround
“So I then spent the next three months traveling to warehouse after warehouse. I probably visited a hundred warehouses, and I would just sit in the warehouse and watch what people were doing.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 7:36 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Lime's Metrics Are IPO-Ready, but Internal Accounting Controls Need Upgrading
“I think Lime's business metrics is in a great spot. I think most of the things we've got to get ready are around kind of internal controls, how fast we can close a book, how, how quickly can we, like, file a 10 K, 10 Q, the types of things that are part of, li…”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 47:52 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Partly supported
Lime Is the Only Micromobility Company Building Proprietary Hardware
“I think every other operator in our industry buys off the shelf hardware, but every scooter and bike you see On Lyme's platform, we design, we engineer, we produce, and we operate ourselves.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 12:37 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime's Cash Runway Shrank to Just 20 Days in Early 2020
“Suddenly what we thought was maybe six months of runway was like, 20 days of runway because all of our revenues went away.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 31:25 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime's Revenue Dropped 90% to 95% in Days at COVID-19's Onset
“Nobody builds a plan where your revenues fall 90, 95% in a matter of days, which is what happened in the early weeks of COVID.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 31:06 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
London Is Lime's Most Profitable Market Globally
“Probably London.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 55:38 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime Achieves Hardware Payback in Under One Year With Five-Year Lifespans
“When we deploy our hardware, we can pay back within the first year, and it lasts for more than five years from the 30 days I was describing before. So you have four more years of cash flow generation after you've paid back your hardware.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 19:34 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Wayne Ting Returned to Work Full-Time the Day After Stroke Rehab
“The next day after I left the hospital, I went back to work full time.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 1:00:46 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 negative
What-if
Lime Would Not Lead Micromobility if Unvetted VC Funding Had Continued
“If the funding continued to flow without real assessment of whether or not a company is doing a good job or bad job, I think Lime would not be the global leader right now because it would allow our kind of worst managed competitors to continue to scale and gro…”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 40:52 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 bullish
Insight
Personal Cars Are Lime's Main Competitor, Not Rival Scooter Companies
“The competitor that I spend most of my time thinking about is the car. The car is our biggest competitor. The majority of car trips are under five miles in cities, and the mode of passenger is one. The most common number of people in a car is one person. And s…”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 18:00 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
What-if
Lime Would Not Have Survived the Pandemic Without Acquiring Jump
“Line wouldn't have survived if we did not do that deal.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 43:50 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025
Insight
Initial Corporate Layoffs Are Rarely Deep Enough, Destroying Management Credibility Later
“When you're doing layoffs, it's always, it always feels so painful, too painful, but I would say it's never painful enough. The most painful thing is coming back three months later with another round of layoffs.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 36:20 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Lime Cut Battery Swapping Operational Costs in Half With Swappable Batteries
“I think our swapping costs were cut by half.”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 23:18 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 27, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Increasing Lime's Fleet Supply Counterintuitively Boosts Per-Unit Utilization
“This is why when we increase our fleet in a market, we actually see our trips per vehicle per day go up. Our utilization goes up. It's counterintuitive. When you grow your supply in most businesses, the utilization per unit goes down because the demand usually…”
Wayne Ting Jan 27, 2025 ▶ 15:55 Wayne Ting, CEO @Lime: From Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | E1252 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 11, 2025 bullish
Prediction Held up
Mignot: Lime and Dott will ultimately succeed in micromobility
“I still think that some companies will do well, actually, in that space. I think Lime is, is doing well. I think Dot is doing pretty well. I think they will be okay at the end, but it's clearly, you know, it's been a really, really difficult space.”
Martin Mignot Aug 11, 2025 ▶ 15:53 Index Ventures Partner, Martin Mignot: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index’s Decacorn Factory · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Made with StarZero

Turn any episode into a week of clips.

This entire site, over 1,200 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable, runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.